Unsaid

was a symposium on the Hazara genocide and exile taking place in Philadelphia at Handford College. According to my traveling experience in America, it wasn’t that long, 3 hours from where we are, and if I could turn back time, I would have joined as many times as possible, but this time with more sleep.

Many people came to the podium and talked about the Hazara genocide and how even killing one person because of their heritage is genocide. Which I didn’t expect. Hearing the name of my ethnicity in another country felt so different, like I couldn’t help but pay attention to everything, and I ended up taking notes on almost everything. And probably would have taken more if their accent was more familiar to me, which was unfortunate.

The schedule was copied and passed out to us before the symposium. As a student in high school, my eyes flashed when I saw the name “Yale,” which turned out to be one of the universities where a Hazara professor taught, and the other one was Harvard. There were absolutely experienced and knowledgeable people discussing the hardness our blood had carried for a long time and the effects it has had from then to now. And without a doubt, being who we are wasn’t easy in the last 124 years.

I imagined myself there for a few seconds; it was me standing next to the big board with slideshows. Although not much, who doesn’t want to do a favor to their people, and for me, it was the biggest I’ve seen about Hazaras, and I wanted to be a part of it. I’ll choose to hope I will be one day. Photographers soon arrived, taking photos from almost every corner of the room. “Will this leave any effects?” I asked my dad, “We are doing this so it will leave an effect,” he said.
And so I hope to see the effect, soon or later, like how karma works. Maybe another symposium, but this one with genocide survivors.